


You are a thief (and you stole my heart away)

by Narya



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Broken Dreams, Coma, Crimes & Criminals, Desperation, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, New York City, Police, Pre-Slash, Puckurt Big Bang, Robbery, Romance, Stealing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya/pseuds/Narya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your father falls into a coma just before graduation you do everything you must to provide him the care he needs; if that means going hungry for a few days, then you will go hungry; if that means selling everything but the indispensable to pay the hospital bills, then you will... until you have nothing more to sell and nothing more to lose than your freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You are a thief (and you stole my heart away)

  


 

 

  


 

 

Kurt Hummel was a survivor, he had heard. Kurt Hummel was resilient. Kurt Hummel was a good kid, who somehow managed to keep smiling through everything life threw his way.

But Kurt Hummel knew the truth

The only thing Kurt Hummel was is broken.

It was the day before graduation that Kurt got a call from the hospital telling him that his father had another stroke. After long hours in the sitting room, the doctor only came out to say that they had tried everything they could, but Burt had fallen into a deep comatose state, and the only thing they could do was wait until he woke up.

So they waited.

People visited, staying for a couple hours with him and Carole. Finn stood behind them more often than not.

People visited, brought flowers that they had to keep throwing out after several days because they kept dying, and stood behind them being uncomfortable and praying more than Kurt felt comfortable with.

People visited and sat with them, and told them it was just a matter of time, that Burt was going to wake up when they least expected it, that things were going to be fine again, that Burt was a strong man and he’d never leave them alone.

But he did.

Burt had been in a coma for nearly three years now, and while Kurt kept hoping that somehow he was going to wake up (he had seen cases, he had read all about them), everything seemed to point in the worst direction. Burt was stable, but his condition wasn’t really improving and he just wasn’t waking up.

Now, Kurt was really hoping for some kind of science miracle, and that meant that no matter how long it took he was going to keep his father in the hospital, and he was going to keep visiting as much as he could. Sure, maybe Burt would have complained about him wasting his life away sitting by his side, but he was family, and family just didn’t gave up on each other. No one pushed the Hummels around, not even death.

He tried to keep going as much as he could while he took the garage under his wing. Just…

It was hard.

It was really hard.

Not only because, even though now he had someone to help him take care of the house (Carole had been an angel the first few months, no matter how heartbroken she was), after so long things started falling apart.

He no longer felt like a part of the family.

Sure, Finn was still his brother and Carole could be a great friend, but there was something missing in that house, something missing amongst them to anchor him to the family. It was his dad, he concluded after some months watching Finn and Carole’s routines. It was his dad who was missing, who actually made him feel like part of a family. Without him, he was just Kurt. Kurt and the Hudsons; it wasn’t the Hudmel family anymore, not without his dad.

When he finally realized that there wasn’t a place for him in that house, summer was almost over. He had graduated, but he had already given up a lot of his dreams. He couldn’t leave for New York when his father was sick in Lima, he couldn’t go and spend money he didn’t have on college when he barely made enough money with the garage to pay the medical bills.

He had started to work in the garage a few weeks after the stroke, mostly because they needed the money now more than ever. He didn’t hate it, but he was tired of it. It wasn’t what he had dreamt about when he thought about his future, but it was necessary.  It didn’t take him too long to realize that few things were going to go according to his plans now, and that he was going to need to be practical.

Being practical… now that was something he hated.

But things fell apart and being practical was a necessity. Little by little the veil of fantasy started to lift, and reality showed its ugly head, at least for Kurt.

Finn and Rachel got married just before she left for NYADA; Finn following close behind, even if he didn’t have a clue of what he was going to do with his future. He left all his troubles in Lima, made a new life for himself and barely looked back. He called from time to time, but Kurt could see that life was busy for him, and Kurt and his father were mostly a burden that he had to carry out of responsibility more than love.

Kurt just didn’t want to be a burden anymore, so calls were missed and mails left unread. And after a while Finn only called on special occasions, to get some news, and it was always uncomfortable and awkward.

It was better that way.

Kurt didn’t blame him.

He didn’t blame Carole, either, when she stopped going to the hospital as often as he did and focused on getting her life back. She had been married to his father just a couple of years, not nearly enough for Kurt to ask for anything else. She still went to see him, and she still loved him dearly, Carole had no problems in saying so, but it wouldn’t be any fairer to ask her to put her life on hold than it would be to ask him to do the same. His father was unconscious and the doctors kept saying that the probabilities of him waking up were growing thinner day by day.

It pained Kurt to see Carole prepare herself to grieve again.

So, it didn’t bother him that after a year of his father being comatose he was the only one who went to visit with regularity. It was for the better, he could go and spend the evening with his father without having to care about other people and well-wishers that only knew how to ask if they could do anything to help (they always asked, but barely never actually did anything to help).

That was life for him.

He had moved out of the house he shared with Carole when mortgage was just too expensive for both of them. Carole went to live with her mother in Toledo and Kurt got a flat that he hated in a neighborhood that he hated even more. The first two years were the easiest because they split the medical bills and mortgage wasn’t an issue anymore, but then Carole lost her job and Kurt just didn’t have the heart to ask her for money for a man that couldn’t even act as her husband, who might as well be dead.

And so it was that Kurt started to work more hours at the garage. He spent every single day there, working himself to exhaustion each week, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

He started to sell things to pay the bills. First to go was his car, then some of his clothes. At some point he started to sell things that had a big emotional value to him, but little value in the world, like his mother’s dresser or his father’s clothes. And then he just didn’t care anymore. He sold his bed and the table with all its chairs. He sold everything he could until he just had the indispensable to live, those things he couldn’t live without, mostly because they helped him to cook, or things like his mattress which he just couldn’t sell if he wanted to be able to move the next day at work. He’d rather sleep on a mattress on the floor than not pay the hospital bills.

But it was never enough.

The first thing to blow up in his face was the electric bill. One day he came home and opened the fridge, still in the dark, and saw that all the stuff he had inside was melting or rotting, and that the little light wasn’t on. For the first time in days he tried to turn on the electric kettle, but nothing happened. Then he remembered the date, and the bill, and his empty wallet.

He found a candle in his bathroom, the kind that he used to light back at home when he had a bad day and wanted a bubble bath; now he used it to light the kitchen as he tried to find a pot to boil some water. A couple minutes later he was crying over his noodles, wondering how the hell he was going to manage to pay his flat’s bills and the hospital’s. He just knew that, whatever happened, his father came first and he could deal with having to live in the dark. Besides… dining by candle light gave a different atmosphere to a bad day, right?

But then the water bill came and he tried to avoid thinking about it for as long as he could because there was no way he’d be able to gather enough money to pay it.

He was taking a shower and the water had run off while he was shampooing his hair. He had to rinse it with a water bottle he always had for emergencies, but by then he was just so angry and frustrated that he didn’t even care about his hair anymore. He just wanted everything to end.

He didn’t have any money left, and he owed money to so many people by then… he just couldn’t go and ask for help now. And Carole, God… Carole hadn’t forgotten about his dad, but she had her own troubles with Rachel’s pregnancy and how much she worried now that Finn was joining the NYC police department.

He just couldn’t keep troubling the people around him.

But time passed and hours being hungry turned into days. And sometimes he barely knew how he made it day after day, going into work, gaining enough money to pay the hospital bills, getting home only to cry himself to sleep, still hungry and just so, so lonely.

The first time it happened was during a holiday.

The garage had been closed for the weekend, so there was nothing to keep him distracted from the hunger. At home there was nothing to do and nothing to look at but empty walls, and nothing to eat. He searched everywhere but there wasn’t a single piece of food in his whole apartment and his stomach just wouldn’t stop growling.

He put on a big jacket that used to be his father’s, took his keys, and started to walk.

He didn’t have a car anymore, just a bike, but right now he had nowhere to go. He just wanted the distraction it meant. So he walked. He walked passed the hospital, past the reservoir, past McKinley, until he found himself sitting in a park, looking as lost as he felt.

There was a store on the other side of the street and he didn’t know what possessed him to go inside when he didn’t have any money. He wasn’t going to beg for food, so going inside was going to be just hell; being tempted with food he’d never get to eat.

God, he was so hungry.

And then, while he walked down the aisles, he saw it. It was simple, in whites and blues, just a carton of milk.

And then he remembered.

He remembered his mother, warming milk when he had a nightmare so he could sleep better. He remembered his father doing the same when he missed his mom so much that he just couldn’t stop crying. He remembered himself, back to when he actually felt human, and the way that Finn reacted when he first brought him some warm milk.

He felt like crying, but he didn’t. There was no time to cry.

He didn’t know what made him do it, maybe it was the hunger, maybe it was just that sadness that seemed to want to swallow him whole… but he did it.

He took the milk and hid it inside his jacket, and just as aloof as he had walked inside he walked out… and down the street, and down another… and then he began to run. He ran fast, as fast as he could; with his heart beating strong in his chest, and feeling like his feet were taking the leap before flying. He ran from the owner of the store, from his fears and his loneliness, from his hunger and the threat of his father dying and leaving him alone.

He ran as far as he could and didn’t stop until he was at last at most hidden corner of his flat, clutching the milk in his hands as if it was made of gold. He opened it up, and while he drank it (cold and from the carton) he cried.

It didn’t hit him that he had stolen something like milk until later on, when his stomach felt full for the first time in days.

It was just milk and he hadn’t even drank it all, but he felt too full to keep on drinking.

He freaked out.

Where sadness had been about to overcome him then, now there was pain and sorrow, and shame, and a freedom that had more to do with running away from what tied him to this town than anything else; a thrill that ran in his veins and that kept him breathing when everything else inside of him felt so numb.

That night he couldn’t get to sleep, he was too excited to do anything but look out of the window and rejoice in being able to feel again.

It was like a switch.

Being able to feel again, even if it was just fear and expectation and that terrible feeling that all what he had fought for depended on what happened in that moment was something that he just couldn’t give up.

It took him a while to actually try it again, he was too scared of being caught, but for a few weeks it was the only thing that he could think about it. Sure, his situation had improved a little as he took some of the money from the garage to pay (which he reserved to pay for some parts) for groceries the next day, and things got better. He wasn’t hungry anymore and he was appalled by what he had done, but the he couldn’t help but look at the security guards in some stores from time to time, and think about how long it would take them to realize he had stolen something, how long would they be willing to run behind him, and what would happen if they caught him. But mostly… how long would they follow him, how long would he have to run, how long would he feel that freedom building up inside him as he took leaps that his pursuers wouldn’t be able to take.

Would they catch him? Would they give up? What if they did, what if he somehow managed to steal something again? What if his heart sped up inside his chest, beats deeper than a pulse, more like a drumming, like a drumroll, like thunder, filling him in until there was nothing inside him but that rush of freedom keeping him sane.

But then… there was the fear.

What would his father say if he knew what he was doing? How would his mom feel if she saw who he was turning into?

He supposed that Carole would be devastated, imagining that it was her fault somehow. Finn would be worried, trying to help but making everything worse at the same time. Rachel would be angry at the idea that now she knows someone in jail. Mercedes would throw a bitch face at him and make a scene, make him think things through…

And yet what kept him from stealing, time after time, was the disappointment he was sure would be in his father’s eyes if he got word of it.

Everything he had done this past year had been for his father, every hour at the garage making his hands too rough to even care about them now, every article of clothing he sold so he could pay for his bills when the garage money went to the hospital, every late night he went to visit only to receive no news… every dream he had crushed when he decided that his father came first. Everything he had done was for him, and the idea of being a disappointment was too much to bear.

The rush, the freedom… he could live without them, as long as his father woke up.

 

*****

 

“What is the meaning of this?” Kurt asks the nurses, feeling like he might explode anytime. His father, his comatose father, is bound to the bed by some awful contraptions around his wrists.

“Your father was a bit restless today, so we had to bind him before he started taking out the tubes,” the woman said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Kurt felt like slapping it away, but stopped himself as he knew it was better to be in good terms with them.

“You mean he woke up?” Kurt asked, his voice slightly laced with hope.

“No, he had a seizure. It’s somewhat common among comatose patients,” she explained, looking at him with pity. Kurt looked away. “It was a mild one, so the doctor didn’t feel the need to medicate him further, but the restraints were necessary just in case it happened again,” she continued, walking away from Kurt and to the door. “I’m sorry; I wish it was better news.”

“So do I.”

The nurse walked away, and Kurt tried not to think about the way his dad was restrained to the bed as if the doctor wanted him to never wake up. This was getting so tiring. By then it had been three years, three full years, and nothing had changed.

The only thing that really had changed was the way that people looked at him with pity, as if he was crazy, as if he was holding onto some desperate thread of hope that everyone knew was going to end up being cut.

He couldn’t stand it.

He walked out of the hospital, not knowing where his feet were taking him, but knowing that he needed to feel something else besides the desperation of having his father’s life on hold; his own life on hold too, he thought later, as he walked into a store, took a jacket and ran away.

 

 

  


 

 

  


 

**  
**

Noah Puckerman Sr. wanted to be a rock star when he was young and, for a while, he tried really hard to get there. Then he got surprising news from his girlfriend, so he married Abigail in a little temple and his son, Noah, had been born just four months later. The neighborhood where they lived wasn’t a great place to raise a child, she used to say, but Noah didn’t want to move.

When he was killed after a gig, the day before Nina’s first birthday, Abigail had been surprised. It wasn’t so much that he was dead, she always thought that those concerts were too violent, but that he'd had been killed by a drug dealer. Her husband had been drugging himself for years, said the police, and Abigail couldn’t understand how she could have missed something as big as that.

For a few months she blamed herself for not noticing something that big about her husband, but trying to teach her son why his father wasn't coming back ended up being the reason she finally started blaming the dealers.

“There are bad people in the world, Noah, and sometimes you are just unlucky enough to meet them,” she said, carding her fingers through his hair. “Your daddy met some of them, and they were angry, too angry to know the difference between right and wrong.”

Sometimes, those nights when her son had long shifts at night, she blamed herself for trying to teach him the difference between right and wrong, because her Noah had grown up thinking that you couldn’t let those bad people roam the world taking dads from their kids, and had enlisted in the police as soon as he could.

Those nights she barely slept, no matter how many times Noah tried telling her that he was fine. She couldn’t be calm when she knew that her son was patrolling New York, trying to keep kids from missing their dads.

And that was her fault.

 

*****

 

Puck, for his part, didn’t really understand what it meant to know the difference between right and wrong until much, much later; until he had to realize that life wasn’t black and white, that there were shades of gray that seemed darker in a white context, and lighter in a black one… that it was all a matter of perspective.

And perspective wasn’t something he had a lot when he was a kid.

His mother’s words did stick with him, as the comic books did, and the superheroes. He knew their stories weren’t real, but the ideology behind them were a constant, and it didn’t take long for him to understand that, even if there weren’t real superheroes around to protect people, there were bad guys out there… and they were making a mess.

He had been helpless as a kid, seeing his father in a coffin, being lowered into the ground because of a bad guy. As he grew up, as he was able to pick up newspapers and conversations, he started to understand that it wasn’t something that had only happened to him. There were many kids like him, who’d miss their dads, even if they were drunk most of the time; kids like his sister, who never got to know them.

There was a lot of anger there too. He wasn’t stupid, and he knew that the reason his dad had been killed was mainly because of poor decisions, like taking drugs when he had two kids at home; and there was anger at the man, the drug dealer that never got caught and that ripped a boy from his dad so early in life.

He spent most of his teenage years angry.

He made his mother cry too, rebelling, being so caught up in how unfair life was that he almost didn’t realize the mistakes he was making.

He started drinking and smoking, got a girl pregnant and almost went crazy when he learned that she wasn’t keeping the baby. And then, after a party with some of his friends from high school, where there was at least a couple joints rolled and more than enough booze to get him home only to puke in his mother’s potted plant, his mother said the words that turned his world upside down:

“You are starting to act just like your father. Are you going to get yourself killed too?”

His anger knew no bounds then. He stood up, cleaned his mouth with his sleeve, and got into mother’s car. He went driving, not knowing where to go, but knowing he wanted an out. He wanted to be gone, to lose the past that kept pulling him into emotions he thought he’d forgotten. He wanted to be free from all that crap, of being his father’s son, of following the same steps of Noah Puckerman, Sr.

Sometimes it felt like the only good thing he got from his old man had been the interest in music, but even that felt like a guilty pleasure because no matter what he would play, his mom always frowned at him when she listened to the notes coming from his guitar.

So he drove around the city, and sped on the yellow lights hoping that something might happen so that he could wake up from the mess he was making of his life.

And something almost did.

The car somehow managed to brake before the crash, and so did Puck, but the wheels were almost flat and he thought, for a moment, that that was going to be it. He was going to die, in an accident, as drunk and as high as his father.

He got scared.

Somehow he went home, pale as a ghost and scared out of his mind, that one day he might die a loser who never accomplished anything but being a carbon copy of another loser.

His mom was waiting on the kitchen with a cup of coffee in her hands, and almost started crying when she saw him.

He felt like an asshole.

What would his family do if he got himself killed, just like that?

There would be no one to blame but himself, no one to be angry at but himself. He couldn’t let his mom go through the grief again. Nina was even the same age he had been when his father died, how would it scar her to have her brother and father die as losers?

He felt like an asshole.

So he cried, and let his mom try to put him back together.

He cleaned up his act. He started trying to feel less angry, and he tried to go back to that subject he spent so much time thinking about as a kid: what was right and what was wrong?

He understood quickly that laws were there for a reason, that his mother was so much calmer and happier when he followed them, and enforced them on his sister. He learned that he actually liked helping people out (first Nina, then his mom, then his Nana, and then strangers), and he really loved the feeling he got when he could protect his loved ones.

And somehow, trying to follow his heart, he ended signing up for the New York City Police Department.

 

*****

 

“Dude, are you Puckerman?” a tall guy in uniform said at his side, making Puck look up from his locker.

“Who's asking?” he asked back.

“I’m Finn Hudson. If you’re Puckerman we're going to be partners, and I wanted to say hi,” he said, holding up a fist.

Puck gave the hand a look for about three seconds before bumping it. Any cop that had enough humor to fist bump his partner instead of giving him a handshake or a weird salute was a good guy in his eyes. It would be fun to have a guy by his side that wasn’t a stuck-up jerk.

“Where are you from? You don’t sound like a New Yorker,” Puck asked, smelling his towel before putting it inside a plastic bag so it didn’t wet his other clothes.

“I’m from Ohio, though I’ve been living here for about three years now,” he said with a shrug. “I guess the accent never goes away.”

“My family's from there, though we never really visit,” Puck commented.

“My family is still there. My mom lives in Toledo with my grandma and my brother live in Lima,” Finn answered, sitting down on a bench. 

“Why are you so far away from home, then? It must be kinda lonely, living here alone in a big city like New York.” Puck put on the last of his clothes. He'd never get used to the uniform, but it did make him feel a bit more powerful, so he guessed it was ok.

“My wife is Broadway bound,” he said with a smile, and Puck startled a little at the love-struck look in his new partner’s face.

“Man, she’s got your balls in lockdown, doesn’t she?” he asked, without being able to help it.

“Hey!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got balls enough for both of us,” Puck said with a laugh, closing his locker to get ready to face his first day patrolling the city.

 

 

  


 

 

  


 

 

Mortgages, debts, loans, bills, foreclosure… those are things that no kid should really know about, and for a long time Kurt was happy to be one of those children.

Now the words come to him in his dreams and while he is awake, as if he lived in a perpetual nightmare that doesn’t seem to ever get better, only worse and worse. The amount of loans he had to take to pay bills, the amount of mortgages that had gone unpaid and the debts that he seemed to be collecting… and the letter of foreclosure that rested on the table before him.

They were going to take the garage back.

It was the last straw.

He didn’t have the money to pay for all those months he owed, he didn’t even have the money to pay the rent for his flat, he didn’t have the money to put food on his table… and yet he was expected to have the money to pay the hospital bills and the garage mortgage, his father’s garage.

It was pay or get ready for foreclosure… and wasn’t that ironic?

If they took the garage he wouldn’t have a job, there would be no money to pay the hospital bills and he… he didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if he couldn’t pay for his father’s treatment anymore. What would happen? Would they send him father back home, to his ratty flat that more often than not didn’t even have electricity?

Just… what would happen to his father?

If he didn’t want to imagine it, he needed to secure the garage payment, secure his job.

He tried talking to the people in the bank, but they wouldn’t listen. Even worse, one of them had the gall to tell him that if, after three years being comatose there was no improvement, maybe he should consider pulling the plug or signing up one of those DNR forms. He might have left the office, slamming the door behind him.

How rude!

How would they feel if someone told them there was no hope in waiting for their parents to wake up? How could they say something like that when it was their fault that Kurt even had to care about this kind of thing? He would have to if they didn’t raise the interest every freaking year!

Kurt got back to his flat that night, sure that, if he had anything ornamental in there, or any chair to begin with, it wouldn’t survive the night, but as it was he couldn’t do anything but punch a wall and cry against a cushion, hoping that the agony he felt inside would somehow disappear.

He didn’t even know how it was that he got the strength to get up each day, other than the fact that each moment that passed was a moment closer to his father waking up and that had to be enough for now… but this…

It seemed that all his problems, everything that was against him in life, had to do with money. His father would wake up whenever he felt like it, Kurt was sure about that, but until then he’d just have to make sure that he could be provided with whatever care he needed… and that meant money.

Money he didn’t have.

He had suffered enough already, hadn’t he? He had stood strong through everything that life had sent his way, hadn’t he? Then why was the bank sending even more trouble and problems when everything seemed to be crumbling around him? When was it going to be enough?

He didn’t have any more money to give them; he didn’t even have any money for himself!

While they sat on their overstuffed chairs, thinking about who to ask money from, he was starving at his ratty flat wondering how was he going to convince his landlord to accept rent next month instead of that one, how he was going to pay the hospital, how long was he going to have to ration food to last for a month…

And while he starved and worried they were going to be there, sitting on their overstuffed chairs wondering how long it would take that silly kid to pull the plug and kill his father, so he could hurry up and pay them.

Just how freaking rude!

He didn’t need to be rich like them, just enough money to pay the bills.

And then it clicked. He didn’t need that much money, just enough to pay his bills.

And they were rich, the bank owners were possibly richer than he could even fathom. They were faceless entities miles away, maybe even in other countries, entities that didn’t have a clue that they might as well be killing someone by taking the garage. They didn’t know and they didn’t care.

But they were rich. They weren’t going to miss the money he would need. They would probably even expect some money to go missing if the amount of people bank robbing in the movies was anything to go by.

And he just needed enough money to pay the bills, not even his rent or the power bill; it was the hospital bill the one cutting into his excuse of a budget. Maybe the garage mortgage this one time, but the rest of the time… he could live perfectly with the income he got from the hours he put on the garage.

He didn’t need much.

And they had so much.

And yet they still wanted what little he had.

And yet they were rude enough to ask him why he didn’t pull the plug.

And yet they were doing everything in their power to make sure that he couldn’t get up from the floor, when he barely had the will to wake up each day.

And yet…

And yet…

He dressed in black, completely in black, with a balaclava in his back pocket and gloves from work in his jacket pocket.

And when he went out of the house he closed the door almost silently, even when he knew that none of his neighbors were going to bother about it.

Well… the bank owners probably weren’t going to bother about what he was going to do now. They had enough money in their hands to know that a new thousand didn’t matter.

And then, he’d use the money as change somewhere, and little by little he was going to pay them back with their own money.

Kurt, even while he broke inside with each step he took in the direction of the bus stop that would drive him to Westerville (and anonymity), grinned like he hadn’t done in years.

For the first time in his life he felt bad, but he didn’t feel guilty.

 

 

  


 

 

Puck had seen many things in his life, and he was quite an open guy, willing to give anything and everyone a chance if it looked like fun and wasn’t against the law. Sure, he had done a lot of things that had gone against the law before, but he knew pretty well what was right and what was wrong, and the way that people seemed to suffer on the streets always made his heart ache with the shame of not being able to help them all, it was something wrong that he wished he could make right.

With time, though, he had learnt that the problem wasn't the people on the streets, but whatever had gotten them there. He had seen tons of things, from whores that worked each night in the streets to feed their kids, to angry, crazy men that had a nice life for years before luck took everything from them. He had seen kids who didn’t know any better, and old blind grandmas who were left abandoned when age became a burden for their families.

It was easy to see the worst of humanity and its sense of despair, in the very streets that during the day were busy with life and joy.

Right now it was a kid. Well, not exactly a kid, as he was probably seventeen or eighteen, who was laying on the streets holding his knees to his chest and shivering under his flashlight.

Later, back in the precinct, they had learnt that he was gay and running away from home after his family had died in a car crash. He had been all alone and he didn’t want to stay there any longer, so he had run. And now he was selling himself to some guys to get money for food and drugs.

Puck had felt like kicking something, but had ended up leaving the child in the hands of social services and wondering how much time he was going to have to spend with his sister to take the bad taste out of his mouth.

He just had a history with car crashes and orphans, ok?

The sound of a locker being punched brought him back from whatever funk he had been spinning himself into. Hudson was on the bench, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes so hard that Puck could imagine the tears he must have been trying to hold back.

“You ok, man?” he asked, trying to seem detached. If the guy was breaking down, he was in no state to actually help him, not when he was feeling so unstable himself.

“That kid… man, that kid!” Hudson had said, kicking the locker in front of him. “He was so little. It was so wrong!”

“Dude, the kid had a rough life, but it’s not like you can do much for him besides taking him off the streets, you know?” he answered, getting his things and going to get a shower without waiting to hear what Hudson had to say about it.

They really couldn’t help him any more than they had, and it sucked. He didn’t know what he’d do if something like that ever happened to his sister. Maybe forget everything about law and kill a few people, but… he couldn’t go around thinking like that about everyone.

It had been a while since he had joined the force and he knew a bit how things worked, and what Hudson must have been going through but, as much as it hurt, there just was nothing else for them to do, and as soon as Finn understood that, the better.

When he went out Finn was still there, sitting on the bench, though he was looking at the locker instead. He was staring at it as if it held some kind of answer; Puck knew it didn’t, he had asked them stuff before too, and they never answered back.

He sat beside his partner and threw one arm over his shoulders.

“What is it, really?” he asked, knowing that for this to happen there might be something else, something deeper, bothering him.

“He reminded me of my brother,” the man said, in a voice so little and scared that for a second Puck thought that the brother was dead or something.

“What about him?”

“My brother, step brother really, he is gay. And… well, when I came here it had been a little less than a year since Burt, his father, had stroke and fell to a coma,” Hudson said, twisting his hands in his lap in a nervous gesture that Puck hadn’t seen in him yet. “Rachel and I stayed there for as long as we could before coming to New York, she had classes to care about and we didn’t want to get married without Burt, but he just wasn’t waking up.”

“Did he wake up before the wedding?” Puck asked.

“He hasn’t woken up yet,” the guy answered with a shrug that felt fake under his arm. “It's been almost four years now… and he hasn’t woken up.”

“But your brother, he isn’t alone, man,” he tried, hoping it would lift his spirit.

“Kurt is a tough guy, but… I dunno… mom left for Toledo about two years ago, and Kurt stayed at Lima working on the garage to help raise the money to pay the hospital bills,” Finn said, looking lost. “Kurt was like Rachel, you know? Broadway bound, all the way! He even broke things off with his boyfriend because he was sure that he was getting out of Lima to come here. It was his dream, his biggest dream… and he exchanged it for coveralls and bills.”

“Dude, your brother has a job and a family that loves him, that’s way more than that kid has right now,” he said, nudging him. “It’s gonna be ok.”

“I don’t know. Kurt is a strong dude, I know it, but last time I saw him he was so… lost, so broken. He might not be selling himself to drug dealers, but I know him… and all this is breaking him.”

“Has there been any improvement in your stepdad's situation?” Puck asked, dreading the answer already.

“None whatsoever, at least that’s what my mom tells me,” Finn said, twisting his hands again.

“Has anyone thought about just... stopping his suffering? I mean, four years isn’t exactly normal, his brain might not even function right if he wakes up,” Puck asked, hoping that Finn wouldn't kill him for asking.

“Kurt doesn’t want to… and it’s his right in the end, isn’t it? It’s his dad… and my mom isn’t even living in Lima anymore,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I just wish I could do something more for him instead of letting him live there, rotting away in that city.”

“You said he was Broadway bound, why don’t you bring him here?” Puck couldn't help but ask.

“He wouldn’t leave Burt’s side. Believe me, I tried,” he said, with a small laugh.

“Well, keep trying, man. This is obviously something that matters to you, so you should do it. I bet he’d love it here. And if he can work in a garage there, he can work in a garage in New York, and the money he gets here will always be better than whatever he gets there… maybe he could even get better doctors for his dad,” Puck said with a shrug, hoping it helped, at least a bit.

“You know, that idea isn’t half bad,” Finn said after a while. “If anything could bring him here, it's the promise of being able to get better doctors for his dad, I’m sure. I’ll try that angle next time we talk.”

Puck got up, getting dressed in a matter of minutes while Finn looked at the ceiling, lost in thought. He was about to go out when Finn called out to him with a:

“Thanks dude, you're a good guy.”

And Puck waved it off, even if he felt something warm inside him at the idea of being a good guy.

 

 

  


 

 

There were gun shots and screams. There were security guards and cops running after him, and his feet left the ground as he started climbing windowsills and pipes until he managed to run over rooftops and chimneys.

There were a few fit and light enough to follow him, but they resorted to bullets and shouts rather than running after him, and while the thrill of having his life in danger and the knowledge that the money in his backpack might solve all his problems, the explosions and the possibility that one of them might get him, were a bit too much.

He was scared.

He ran, not only because the will to live was the stronger now but because those cops were going to kill him for robbing a bank and actually kicking a cop over the head before escaping.

He might be about to die in a dingy rooftop in Westerville, leaving his father with nothing but the shame of having a thief for a son, and no one to take care of him until he woke up.

Kurt ran faster then, moving because it was the only thing he could do. This was nothing like stealing a carton of milk or a jacket. This was bigger, this was so much bigger, and this robbery might end all of his problems. It was that or death. Or jail, but he didn’t even want to think about what could happen to him if he ever got arrested and sent to jail.

Kurt ran because there was nothing else to do but run and leap and hope that he was fast enough to escape, fast enough to make it, fast enough to lose them, fast enough to get away with it.

And then he hid.

He turned around a chimney and hid there while those two cops on his track passed him and ran in the direction he had taken before hiding. He tried to stop his beating heart, he tried to cover his mouth and nose with his hand to avoid being heard, and he swallowed around his fear.

And ran again in another direction.

And for a while it felt like home, it felt like all those nights at the table wondering how he was going to do to pay all that money, how he was going to keep Carole in Toledo and not have her come over to Lima, how was he going to keep dodging Finn’s questions and Rachel’s pleas to follow them to New York, how was he going to keep himself in Lima when all he wanted to do was run away from there and everything that kept him tied to that city. Running from those cops, and losing them for a while, felt like running away from all those sleepless nights and nightmares, from his fears and the knowledge (deep in his mind) that his father wasn’t going to wake up from this and he might as well count himself an orphan.

If he cried, he didn’t know it, or told himself it was the wind in his eyes that kept burning and making him choke.

But he kept running, he kept leaping, and he kept escaping until Westerville was nothing but a spot on the rearview mirror of the guy who had let him ride with him back to Lima.

It wasn't until he was home, at his ratty flat without furniture and its cracking paint on the walls, that he allowed himself to stop and rest, and break down over the backpack with money.

This last thing, this robbery, was what finally broke him. It was what finally made him understand how far he could go to keep up the hope that his father was going to wake up, even when everything pointed the other way.

He hated himself for it, but for a few seconds he considered it, and realized that maybe those guys in the bank where right and he should really pull the plug.

Kurt would never be the same after that.

The phone started ringing after a while, but didn't have the strength to get himself off the floor to pick it up until the next night.

 

 

  


 

 

 “I did it, man,” Finn said during one party at Mav’s place. The guy had his phone in his hand and a giant grin on his face, and Puck spared a moment to wonder how such a softie got into the force.

“You learnt to pee by yourself? Congrats, man!” he says with an amused smile at the way Finn just throws himself onto the floor next to him.

“No, I called my brother, told him about coming to work here and about getting more money for doctors and such. He actually heard me out!” the guy explains, pocketing his phone and taking a sip from Puck’s beer.

“Is he coming here then?” Puck asked, getting his beer back and looking at the way the officers inside seemed to be about to break into song.

“Kurt said to give him some time to get things ready. He had some bills to pay and needed to find someone he trusted to place in charge of the garage, but yeah… he is coming here, finally,” Finn said, with a huge relieved smile.

“Is he hot?” he asked, getting up and getting a beer for Hudson before sitting back against the balcony.

“I guess? He used to be really little when I first met him, but he's kind of tallish now, and he is kind of strong for a guy his size,” Finn answers, awkwardly, while opening his beer.

“Is he pretty then?”

“Yeah, he is quite pretty for a guy. I mean… he is all soft-like and his hair is always shiny.”

“You’ll have to introduce us then,” he said with such a grin that even Finn must understand it. It takes a while, but a few seconds later he is spluttering beside him.

“Oh, man, is everyone gay? Why can’t I have straight friends?” he whined after a while.

“Hey, I’m not gay. I just like them pretty,” Puck said with a laugh, before some of the girls take him off the floor and into the party for a dance and a grope.

 

*****

 

Work kept them on their toes all the time, and Finn has learnt a little about what could be done to help and when to stop trying. Puck has seen the way his heart has hardened a little and wonders if this sadness is something his sister felt about him when he started to understand that, even if he had joined the police to help, there were times when you just couldn’t.

There were times when Puck was sure that the only thing that kept Finn happy was the promise that his brother was going to be next to him soon, and that he could stop worrying about him being so far away from ‘home’.

“Man, can we take a bit of a detour before we go back to the station? Kurt’s flight arrives in about twenty and if I’m not there he might get lost,” Finn said, before getting in the car.

“Have him take a cab, man, I’m not your brother’s chauffer,” Puck said with a frown.

“But you are mine, right?” Finn said with a grin, and Puck just hit him in the shoulder.

“Dude, the Captain is going to have my ass if he gets word of this” Puck complained.

“He’ll never know from me, I swear. I just don’t want him to feel alone when he gets here for the first time, ok?” Finn says, looking so vulnerable that Puck can’t help but drive to the airport and hope they can make it to the precinct in time for the next guys doing their rounds so that the car isn’t missed.

When they get there the airport is as full as it always is, but he can see the way that the people make way for Finn when he steps out in search of the mysterious Kurt. Puck stays in the car, looking at everything around them just in case, and ends up looking at a guy a good 20 feet from the vehicle.

He has seen the signs before and he knows the tics, and that guy is as dodgy as they come, looking at the patrol from time to time, his hands fidgeting around his small bag, and his ratty clothes that speak of long, hard worked days, shielding him from the world around him as armor. He has seen it before, but it doesn’t make him feel better about it.

That guy has to be a thief or something, either ready to make his next move or to flee, but he isn’t there for no reason. He has seen the amount of things that are stolen in airports, so he is sure that this guy is about to make a move and he thinks about calling Finn and telling him about it, tell him to put an eye on the pale guy with the ratty t-shirt and the baggy jeans because everything points to suspicious.

But then Finn is making his way behind the guy and enveloping him in a huge hug. And if the guy is shocked and jumps about a foot in the air, he doesn’t notice because he is too stunned, realizing that the dodgy guy is the mysterious Kurt Hummel.

“Oh, God, either I was wrong or this Kurt might be a problem,” he mutters, as he sees the way that the kid pales when Finn starts walking him to the car.

“Hey, Puck, look, this is my brother, Kurt Hummel!” Finn says as soon as he opens the back door, letting the kid inside.

“Hey, kid, I’m Officer Puckerman,” he tries, turning and reaching out a hand for the kid to shake. Kurt does after a while.

“Kurt Hummel, as you already know,” the kid says, taking his hand and shaking it, looking straight at his eyes, unafraid; it’s a complete 180 from the kid he saw on the platform, and he starts wondering if maybe he imagined the whole thing or if maybe this Kurt was just nervous about coming to live at the big, bad city.

“Ok, introductions made; let’s get out of here before the captain starts asking for us.”

They are about 5 minutes in the road when Finn turns around in his seat and looks at the kid, as if he just figured something out.

“Dude, where are your other bags and the rest of the stuff?” he asks, looking weirded out by it.

“There isn’t anything else,” Kurt answered, looking at Finn and lifting an eyebrow, in such a bitch face that Puck finds himself chuckling.

“But, dude, you always travel with like, half your closet with you. And I’m guessing you’ll have furniture to bring here if you're going to live in the city. Are those coming later on, or what?” 

“Finn, I sold about everything at home to get everything ready to come. Tickets aren’t exactly cheap, you know?” Kurt said with something akin to laughter in his voice but, as Puck looked in the rearview mirror, there was something hard and cold in his eyes that made him shake his head at Finn’s naïveté.

“Where are you staying, Kurt?” Puck asked, only taking his eyes from the road so he could watch the boy’s eyes looking at him in the mirror.

“I’m crashing at Finn and Rachel’s until I can get a place for myself. I’ll have to find a job first, so it might take a while,” Kurt said, shrugging.

“You might want to hurry up with the job, you’ll want to take your eyes out by the second night, trust me,” Puck said, laughing.

“We're not that bad,” Finn pouted.

“Dude, I was sleeping on your couch and you tried to get in her pants in the kitchen. You _are_ that bad,” Puck said with a grimace. 

“I’m only human.”

“You are only gross.”

“Really, Finn?” 

“Dude, you're my brother, protect me!”

“Uggh, just… know that if you fuck on the couch while I’m using it to sleep at night, I’ll find someone to fuck on your bed,” Kurt said, crossing his arms in front of his chest, and Puck finally laughed as he had been wanting to do for a while.

“Dude! Not my bed!”

“Dude, not my couch,” Kurt answered, and Puck just couldn’t help the next comment.

“Kurt, if they do it and you need someone to fuck on his bed, just call me. We’ll get our revenge,” he said with a laugh. Finn beside him started spluttering and whining, but in the backseat Kurt was giving him a very interesting smirk.

He still didn’t trust the kid, but at least he was fun.

 

  


 

 

New York was everything he remembered and everything he dreamed of. Sure, the situation wasn’t as ideal as he had always wished, but he was here at least and that was the only thing that mattered. At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself every day.

It was so different, though, and it was a bit overwhelming.

Mostly, even when he was surrounded by people almost all the time, he just couldn’t help feeling alone and broken, and there wasn’t any way to fix it.

He had left Lima, he had run away from Lima really, ashamed of the bank robbery, overwhelmed by the fear he had felt that night when bullets passed beside him, and broken because he had left his father there. He had nothing in Lima but his dad and, really, that was the only thing that mattered.

New York, with its lights and its streets full of people, was everything he had dreamed of for years, and yet he was here now and he still felt like he was running away from something. He felt the fear on his heels; he felt his father’s coma looming over him, trapping him, oppressing him.

He had found a job in a small garage, run by a family with a couple of guys in training. It was a fun environment, and even if the pay wasn’t much, it was more than enough to live there while the garage in Lima paid for his father’s hospital bills. Well, that and what was left of the money he had stolen.

He had really stolen way more money than he’d needed. He had enough to pay his mortgages and debts and still have money left to pay for the hospital. But he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t going to pay everything all at once. The banks, most likely, knew how hard it had been for him to pay, if he suddenly appeared with too much money it would be suspicious.

So he waited. He had travelled with all the money in his bag, in a bus because he couldn’t imagine what would happen when they checked his bag and found nothing but money and a couple of jeans and shirts, and then took a cab to the airport to wait for Finn.

He hadn’t expected the patrol car waiting for him; for a second he thought that somehow he had been discovered, until Finn hugged him and got him inside. After that weird ride, and getting home to Rachel and her hugs, he started to feel a bit at home.

And by then he had been in the city for a week, taking everything in stride, hoping that the energy running through him would leave him at some point.

So far, there had been no luck on that.

And then there was Noah Puckerman, who refused to be called anything but Officer Puckerman, and the way that he would always watch him a little longer than necessary as if he was trying to catalog him.

Right now he was at a party, his own Welcoming party that Rachel decided to throw even when Kurt had told her more than once that he would rather sleep the stressful week away.

Inside the flat everyone was having a good time, or so it seemed. There were some of Rachel’s friends from her college and fellow cast-mates, and some other officers from Finn’s since; and while everyone drank, sang and danced inside, Kurt took a bottle of beer with him and sat outside on the fire escape landing.

The night was darker than what he was used to, but that might have to do with the amount of light coming from the streets, and after such a long time getting used to being alone, the party seemed too crowded and loud for his taste.

He was just taking the last sip of his beer when the window opened again, letting the noise out for a while until Officer Puckerman closed it behind him.

“What are you doing outside, kid? The party is for you, you know?” he asked, sitting on the steps of the stairs, a few feet from him.

“It was getting a bit too loud for me in there, I needed some air,” Kurt said with a shrug.

“You're not used to this, right? I mean, the loud obnoxious people having fun,” Puckerman said with a smirk, and Kurt found himself smiling back.

“I’ve spent the last few years working my ass off every day, and being alone the rest of the time. This whole city is loud and obnoxious now, no matter how much I’ve longed to be here,” he answered, seeing no point in holding back. For all that Puckerman stared at him, Kurt kind of liked the way he went about life, and his humor always made him laugh. If there was anyone in that city that Kurt would like to befriend, it would be this guy.

“You aren’t regretting coming here, are you? ‘Cause I’m afraid I was the one that gave Finn the idea to bribe you with better doctors for your dad, and I’d hate to feel guilty about it,” Puckerman said, taking a sip from his own beer. He didn’t look particularly guilty to be honest.

“No. It’s a lot to swallow, and I’m still stumbling around and feeling lost but, no, I don’t regret it,” he sighed, looking to the street and the alley under him.

“You don’t look to happy, though,” he commented, and Kurt looked up to meet his eyes only to look away. The care he saw in them was a bit too much, and it had been years since someone had looked at him like that, like his father, like he mattered.

“I guess I’m just… untethered” he said, avoiding Puckerman’s eyes as much as he could.

“’Cause of your father?”

“Yeah… he… he's been all I’ve had for almost twenty years. I still remember my mom, but it’s not as strong. The pain isn’t as close as it is now….” A noise got his attention and he looked up just in time to see Puckerman slide onto the floor next to him.

“How will you know if something happens, if he wakes up or something?” he asked.

“I’m the only emergency contact he has, besides Carole, Finn’s mom. So if anything happens they have to call me,” Kurt said, looking at his empty bottle. Puckerman gave him his when he noticed, shrugging.

“So… is that the reason you're feeling untethered? ‘Cause you are homesick?”

“I’m not homesick!” Kurt exclaimed, a bit aggravated. “I hated Lima. That town has nothing but bad memories for me, with a few exceptions, obviously, but all I can remember from the place right now are bad things. I’m not homesick.”

“Dude, chill, I’m not talking about the town. I’m talking about your dad. As far as I’m concerned, home is wherever your loved ones are, you are missing your dad, so I can’t blame you for feeling homesick,” Puckerman said, holding his hands up as a sign of peace before getting up and offering a hand to him. “What about we let this go for a while and get some more beers? Maybe a dance,” he said with something in his laugh and eyes that Kurt only identified as flirting when the party was over and everyone had gone home.

 

  


 

 

It'd been about six months since Kurt arrived to New York and so far Puck has cleared almost all his doubts. The guy was fun, sarcastic and ironic to the point that he was glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of his bad moods as often as Finn was.

They hadn’t seen each other that much, only at parties, and sometimes when Rachel invited him over for a movie night. Kurt had moved to his own place _(“small as a shoe box, but at least I’ll know no one else is going to fuck on my couch but me”_ , he had said) and between both their jobs, they had more or less disappeared from each other's maps weeks ago.

It was nice, though, knowing that he was a real hard worker, that he didn’t have any vice other than a beer or two when they partied, and that he didn’t seem like he was going to leave New York any time soon.

He still tried to get news about Kurt’s dad from Finn, but as far as he knew nothing had changed other than the fact that the probabilities were getting slimmer day by day.

He did wonder how Kurt managed with the uncertainty of what would happen with his dad, but he didn’t know how to help so he didn’t do anything. Besides, he didn’t even have his phone number, so there was nothing he could do.

It was still a pity. Kurt was fun, interesting and hot, and Puck would gladly give him way more than his time, but no matter what he tried, Kurt didn’t seem interested. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time.

And then, speaking of time, Finn was running late.

“Dude, I’m sorry, I just… there was a problem,” Finn said as soon as he got in the car.

“What was it?”

“Problems in Lima. Seems that Burt had some seizures or something, took out all the tubes he had in his arms and made a huge mess of his arms. They had him sedated and restrained, so… yeah. Mom was a bit freaked out, and I had to call Kurt to know how he was feeling, but he didn’t pick up.”

“Dude, it’s like 6 in the morning. Kurt must be sleeping,” he said, taking a curve and going to the address that the Captain had sent them to. It was in the North Cove Marina. There were a couple of cars there already, those guys from the bomb unit were leaving the place looking baffled, and Puck closed the door behind him, hoping to catch one of them.

“Dude, Mai, what was it?” he asked, looking around at the people surrounding the place. The area was already cordoned off, and a few officers seemed to be walking in front of a yacht looking confused and trying to find evidence.

“Someone said there were suspicious boxes on a boat and we came here, this early, only to lose our time,” she sighed, looking tired.

“No bombs?”

“No bombs. Not even one. It looks like a prank, actually. I wouldn’t lose my time on this, you know?” she said before yawning.

“Night shift?” He asked with a grimace; the girl nodded. “Yeah, go to sleep, then. I’m sure Mav is missing you,” he said, waiting for Finn to catch up. They made their way over together, looking around to check who was looking and who looked suspicious, because that was something you learned to do as soon as you got in the force.

“What was it?”

“Mai said it might be a prank. Something about suspicious boxes that weren’t so,” Puck shrugged.

“Unsuspicious boxes? That sounds suspicious,” Finn commented. “At least she's going home; it means we're not going to explode.”

The detective looked tired. You didn’t have to be a genius to know that he was not as amused to be called there, at 6 am, for a prank. He looked at them with an arched eyebrow and pointed to the boat.

“Bombs already cleared the place, guys. The boxes are exactly what they say and nothing more. Look, can you find anything useful and start asking around if someone saw something? I’ll go check with the manager.” Detective Lark walked away, stretching some cricks from his shoulders, as they made their way over to the yacht.

It was a pretty thing, all white walls and dark wood in the furniture and floors. It had a nice, warm feeling about it, what with the way it looked like someone’s living room, but the boxes looked so out of place around it that he could get why people thought it was suspicious.

He opened one of the boxes with the tip of his pen, as to not leave fingerprints, and was shocked with what found inside them.

Milk.

All the boxes had nothing but cartons of skim milk.

And a note, on top of one of the boxes, that said: _“Warm it up, will you?”_

 

 

  


 

 

 

He had gotten used to the city, to the traffic, to the people, to the contamination, to the angry ones and the robbers, to the cars and the dirty subways, to the crazy people that walked the streets and to the dirtiness that crowded the back alleys of said streets that he once thought was nothing less than perfect.

He got used to waking up in a flat as dingy as his old one, if a bit more cluttered with furniture and clothing. He had power here, and a TV, a fridge, even a kitchen. It was a lot more than he had in Lima, but it was less than he had when he was a kid.

But he had a job, and his situation had gotten as stable as it would ever be. The guys in the garage all knew about his dad, about the garage at home, about him living alone, and were slowly becoming his closest friends. Gloria, the office manager, usually gave him food to take home because she insisted that nothing compared to having someone else cook for him. And he knew that when she said that, it was because she had cooked whatever was in that Tupperware especially for him. And she was right, it was so nice not worrying about cooking those days, and just reheating whatever it was while he watched TV or read a book.

Sometimes, when he woke up feeling good, he even sang with the radio.

At work things went as usual, things had to go a bit faster than however they went in Lima, but he was fine with it. More cars meant more money, and he could always use more money.

He still felt as lonely and untethered as always, but the pain got duller with time. And soon he started having other stuff to worry about instead of just his father. He got invited to things, he went to the movies with Rachel, Finn insisted on bringing him along to some of his department parties (as if he really needed to know cops when he had robbed a bank), and he found himself with less time to wallow in the knowledge that he had abandoned his father in Lima to go and live his life.

Some days the feeling was too much and he couldn’t help the way his hands shook and his eyes got teary as soon as he remembered his dad in a hospital bed. Some nights he woke up drenched in sweat, calling for his dad, asking him to come back, to wake up, only to realize that he was all alone, miles away from home.

Home.

The word had stayed with him long after Puckerman had said it. It put everything into perspective and helped him realize why he was feeling that way. It helped him understand the feeling in his chest and the knot in his throat, but not feel it any less.

He missed his dad more than he missed Lima, and he missed his dad awake more than he was worried about him waking up.

But he understood better now, he knew that there was nothing for him to do but wait and it was always better to wait doing something than to stand there doing nothing.

And he tried, for six months, he tried to keep his mind busy with his job, with books, with magazines and people, friends, his brother. He tried.

And those nights when he woke up sweating, when he just couldn’t go back to sleep and saw his father everywhere, he just put on some pants and ran around the city. He ran through parks and down streets, he climbed emergency staircases and jumped the roofs. He ran as if something was closing in on him (maybe his fear, maybe his father’s death) and he ran as if his feet could fly with each step.

He usually felt freer those nights.

But then there were other nights, when no matter how far he ran, he just couldn’t get his adrenaline to rise, and no matter how much he tried to escape, his mind was right beside him, with him, with his fears.

Those were the nights when he went back home and locked the front door, hoping that he wouldn’t end up losing against his will. Those were the nights when he was tempted to go back to his coping method in Lima. Those were the nights when he felt that the only way to feel free was to have someone real running behind him, a real threat.

And it worked for six months, until the phone call.

It was late at night, but not late enough to catch him sleeping. And the voice on the other side was too calm for what it was saying.

A seizure.

Another seizure.

“It was all common, you shouldn’t worry”, “There was some damage when he took out some tubes and needles, but he is mostly ok”, “They had to restrain him with soft cloths, but the doctor felt it necessary for him to be sedated”, “It doesn’t mean he's going to wake up”, “We’d like to remind you that after so long, the possibilities of him waking up are less than 15%, and the possibilities of him having complete use of his faculties after waking up are close to none”, “We’ll keep in touch if anything changes in his condition, good night”.

The voice was too calm, too cold, and Kurt felt as if his body was freezing.

He might have fallen to the floor, but he didn’t notice. He just hung up and let the news surround him like a coat, as dread fell over him.

He needed milk. He needed something warm to keep him from crying.

And his fridge was out of milk, he didn't even have one carton of milk in his kitchen and he wanted one more than anything. His sanity depended on that milk and there wasn’t a drop of it at home.

He ended going out for some.

And somehow, on the way to the door, he put his balaclava and some gloves in his pockets. There was no reason to do so, it wasn’t even that cold outside, but he did.

He didn’t understand what he was doing until he was driving a truck to the Marina, he didn’t get it until his skin was covered and the milk he had stolen was adorning the deck of the fanciest yacht he could find.

And then he felt the thrill again and he swallowed against the shame he had once felt. This was nothing. It wasn’t anything harsher than a prank. It didn’t hurt anyone.

And yet the thrill of being discovered made him feel like he was someone strong enough to survive whatever had happened in Lima.

Maybe it was because of that that he wrote the note, because it was such an innocent thing to do, that if he didn’t somehow make it bigger than it was no one would pay attention to it. But the note… the note gave it a meaning, it gave it a purpose.

It made him known and dangerous.

It made him someone to catch.

And he craved the chase.

 

  


 

 

“You know? My sister does the same kind of thing when she wants my mom to pay attention to her,” Puck said, looking at the note stuck on the wall.

“Your sister steals stuff and then leaves it elsewhere?” Finn asked, looking at the traffic cones littering the steps of the St. John the Divine Cathedral. They had been called for another prank; another disturbance of the public order in the middle of the night and neither knew what to think about it.

“No, she does all this crazy stuff until my mom pays her attention, like cutting her hair and dyeing it blue. If my mom doesn’t pay attention then she escalates and does something worse, like start smoking or getting a tattoo,” Puck said, looking around, then back to the note. It didn’t make sense at all, but it was the same handwriting.

“ _Caution,_ ” he reads, glancing at the detective who was looking around as confused as they were.

“What happened here?” Lark asks, confused.

“The milk-thief is back, now with cones,” Finn said, showing him around.

“Are you serious?”

“Same handwriting,” Puck said, motioning to the note on the wall. “We asked around, everyone says that last night everything was normal, so this happened around 2 am and 5 am today. No security camera on this side of the street, but the building in front has some that records their sidewalk.  Lee is talking to them already, getting a copy of the tape,” Lark just nods.

“Looks like this guy's a prankster,” he commented.  “An intelligent one at that.”

“Was there anything at the Marina that will give us a clue?” Puck asked, curiously, while Finn went down the steps towards some of the ladies looking around. No doubt to ask them for information; for some reason they always answered him more than they did Puck.

“Only that it must be an athletic and strong guy or a really strong woman. Those boxes were heavy,” Lark said, taking out his notepad and jotting some things down. “Besides that, nothing, not a single fingerprint or footprint; we did find a stolen truck around the corner. So everything points to the guy using the truck to get there, and the milk came from a Wal-Mart in Jersey. The truck is from here, though. So our guy might be from the city, if he was able to leave from here walking."

“What did the security guard say?” Puck asked, a little bit baffled.

“That he must have fallen asleep around 2 or 3, and we got notice about this around 5, so….”

“It matches with the time on this one, right?”

“Yes, it does, but it’s not enough for us to have a case yet. Let’s try to see if there was anyone here who saw something and isn’t telling us. I’ll have some guys pick up the cones and try to find something,” Lark said, picking up his radio.

“I’m sure they won’t,” Puck commented before going to Finn to see if he had found anything.

A few hours later and they were no closer to catching the thief than they were to finding out whether it was a man or a woman, and Lark was sighing in exasperation. The had verified, at least, that the time had to be between 3 and 4:30, as some neighbors had early jobs or came back late, but no one had seen anything weird. They hadn’t even found what might have been the guy’s vehicle this time, and the people at the Cathedral hadn’t heard anything that night that might have been suspicious enough for them to go and look.

By ten Lark decided that there wasn’t much to do there yet, not unless the specialists got something, but until the thief did something new there was just no point, so they went back to their usual patrolling and being on call.

And they do, but Puck can’t help but feel that there’s something they’re missing from this guy (in his gut he knows the thief is a guy), and he can’t concentrate no matter how much he tries to keep his mind on the job.

At the end of the shift, Finn talked him into getting some beers with him and his brother at this bar on the 75th, so they ended up taking a cab there before he even thought about it. His mind had been going on and on about the milk-thief and a little pick up might have got his mind going somewhere else.

Besides, it’d been ages since he last saw Kurt and, even if he didn’t know him that much, the guy was cool and fun; he kind of missed him. Even better, Kurt was more than nice to look at, so… yeah. He was all for it.

When they got there Kurt was already nursing a beer, looking outside the window, lost in thought.

“Hey, dude, have you been here long?” Finn asked after greeting him with a hug, slipping beside him in the booth, leaving Puck to sit in front of them on a chair.

“Not really, someone came in with a broken transmission right before I clocked out, so I had to stay a bit longer,” he answered with a shrug and a smile in Puck’s direction.

A girl with a long black apron came and took their orders, and Puck was surprised that he didn’t even notice her tits until Kurt elbowed Finn to stop looking at her cleavage.

Their beers came a while later, and for about an hour they just keep mindlessly joking about the way Finn remembered a Kurt so different from the one he had sitting right in front of him, and the way he couldn’t think of a day when he hadn’t heard him sing something.

Puck tries not to dwell on the way that Kurt's eyes harden a little, even if he laughed and smiled with them, but in the end he just couldn’t stand the way that Kurt’s smile keeps dimming while Finn talks about the way he used to be. He tried to change the subject to the milk-thief guy; the story was fun after all.

He didn’t really know, he had no way to know really, but he feared that whatever might have made Kurt change had nothing to do with wanting to, and more to do with having to. And he had seen so many people crush their dreams before that he doesn’t want Kurt reliving it for his brother’s enjoyment.

“So, this morning we got called to the most weird case ever,” Puck says, interrupting Finn in the middle of a sentence, getting Kurt’s attention almost immediately.

“Oh, what was it?” he asked, leaning over his wrist to look at him so directly that Puck felt like he might stutter a bit.

“There… well, we were called to a Cathedral, not too far from here really, where some guy had covered all the steps and sidewalk with traffic cones,” he said, shrugging a little. Now that he got to retell the story, it didn’t sound as funny and he felt a bit self-conscious, which was not something that happened often, so he was blaming Kurt on that.

“Why would someone do that?” Kurt asks, bewildered.

“No idea,” Puck says, shrugging.

“It's the same guy that left like, thirty boxes with milk cartons in them at the Marina, I think I told you about that,” Finn said, sipping his beer.

“Why would someone do all that? Sounds like a pain,” Kurt commented, the frown in his forehead betraying how insane it seemed to him.

“Dunno, the detective thinks it might be a prankster, a really intelligent one at that,” Puck answered.

“Well… it does sound innocent and childish.”

“I think it'll escalate,” Puck says, looking at Finn.

“Again with the sister theory?” he asked, tired of it already. Puck had been talking about nothing but all day long.

“What theory?” Kurt asked.

“No, don’t get him started,” Finn complained, and Puck didn’t listen at all because Kurt seemed interested, and the glint in his eyes was so much prettier to look at than his dimming smiles.

“My sister is always trying to get my mom’s attention, you know? I was like that when I was a teenager too, so I don’t blame her, but it’s her turn now… and she has done so many stupid things so far…”

“Like what?” Kurt asked.

“Well, we're Jewish, so there’s like a list of things we shouldn’t do… like, at first, she might start with having bacon for breakfast, but then she'll escalate things, just like this guy will do. First it’s the bacon, then the tongue ring, the Mohawk, the tattoos, the bad hair dye….”

“I think you're describing yourself. Didn’t you have a Mohawk in high school?” Finn said with a smirk.

“Well, I didn’t dye my hair or got a tattoo….” Puck said, looking sheepish.

“What about the tongue ring?” Kurt asked with a flirty tilt of his eyebrows, and Puck couldn’t help but show him his tongue as far as it went. “Well... boo; here I was getting my hopes up for a tongue ring.”

“I had a nipple ring when I was in high school, but it got ripped out in a fight,” Puck said, shrugging a shoulder before calling the waitress for some shots.

“Is this your way of calling it a night?” Kurt asked when the shot was set in front of him.

“It’s Friday and I have a free day tomorrow, so, no. What about you, Finn?” Puck asked, taking his shot in hand and raising it to the middle of the table for a toast. Finn groaned, planted a hand on his face and nodded.

“Rachel has a big rehearsal tomorrow and wants me to go with her, so we can spend some time together and all that,” Finn said, cringing, before taking the shot glass between his big fingers and going for the toast.

Kurt studies the liquid before joining them.

“What are we toasting to?” he asked.

“What about piercings?” Pucks said with a smirk Kurt’s way.

“Wait until I’m gone to start flirting, please,” Finn asked, and Kurt just laughed. It was a weirdly musical laugh, and a bit more sad than happy.

“To friends then. Or do you have another cliché we could toast to?” Kurt asked, looking at him with his bitch face ready to snap in place.

“To my brother not sleeping with my partner!” Finn said, happily, to which he got a punch in the shoulder from Kurt and a slap upside the head from Puck.

“To my brother not getting any in a month for being a jerk,” Kurt said, getting a complaint from Finn and a laugh from Puck.

“To me getting laid soon!” Puck laughed, much to Kurt’s amusement and Finn’s groans.

 

  


 

 

Kurt must say that he likes Officer Puckerman. He isn’t as serious as he once thought and he's caring in a way only someone who has looked out for someone else all his life could, just the way he seems with his sister. There is something in his stories that talks about having seen and lived more of life than he lets on, and there’s respect in his eyes whenever Kurt talks about his job.

Kurt doesn’t need much else to like him, but whatever he gets about him from Finn only tells him that he is a good guy and that, if he has made mistakes in the past, he has fixed them by now.

They don’t see each other that much, but whenever they do Kurt can’t help but linger. He likes the guy after all, and he has a good time talking to him. Puckerman is refreshing when all of Rachel’s friends only ever talk about Broadway, and Finn doesn't know about anything other than work and football.

Kurt certainly doesn’t want to know about Finn’s job.

Well, knowing that Puckerman and Finn are working on his case is a bit of a surprise, and he can’t help but feel that it gives him some advantage, but the rest of it? He really doesn’t care. Besides, knowing that the police thinks of him as nothing more than a prankster is kind of a blow to his ego.

But Puckerman doesn’t talk about it as much.

Even better, Puckerman seems to read his moods much better than his own friends seem to, so he knows when to change the subject, when he is in the mood to talk about serious stuff and when he’d rather have some meaningless fun laughing at Finn or Rachel.

So far Kurt has learnt that Puckerman isn’t a great dancer unless it’s some slow sensuous dance, and that he isn’t book-smart at all, but pretty good at reading people and knowing right from wrong.

He did have a bit of trouble distinguishing between the scales of gray, but Kurt didn't bother about it. It wasn’t as if the man was ever going to learn about Kurt’s shadows or grays.

The less he knew about that the better.

There was a lot that they could talk about without Kurt saying anything about how the only time he felt free was when he was running away from someone that chased him; not that Puckerman could ever understand what it meant to feel like that.

No, they didn’t need it.

They could still laugh with each other, and stumble out of the bar with Puckerman’s arm around his shoulders and Kurt’s around his waist, trying to contain his giggles.

They could still try to catch a cab together, even when they weren’t going in the same direction. And Kurt could still end up in Puck’s flat for the first time, telling himself that nothing was going to happen and that he would sleep in the couch.

It would be true.

They just ended up sitting next to the long windows, looking at the city, nursing a beer between them, talking about their fathers and their infancies, with Kurt trying to forget that Puckerman was watching him like a hawk, trying to steer the conversation to happy places whenever he felt that Kurt’s mood shifted; he guessed it was just something he’d have to get used to.

He let himself go for a bit with the knowledge that Puckerman wouldn’t let him be sad if he wasn’t going to bring him back towards happiness later.

“Your dad sounds like a nice guy,” Puckerman says with a sad smile of his own, and Kurt can’t help but press a little. He isn’t as gentle with other’s feelings as Puckerman is, and he certainly can’t read him as well as he does Kurt, but he is curious.

“What about yours?”

“Mine was a wannabe rock star, but he didn’t do any good. Got killed while buying drugs when I was a kid,” Puckerman says, shrugging.

“That must have been awful” Kurt comments, passing him the bottle with what little was left of the liquid.

“More for my mom than me back then; I guess it affected the way I saw things, but I didn’t really notice until I was a teenager. There are too many things that point to his death being the reason I am who I am, but besides missing him like crazy when I was a kid and being angry as fuck as a teenager, I don’t remember much of him,” Puckerman says, finishing off the beer and putting it on the floor near them.

“Still, being raised by a single parent does change the way you see life and how you react to things about your family. You get more protective of them, I guess,” Kurt supplies; he looks at the Officer’s reaction in search of an emotion similar to his own but doesn’t know how to read him.

“Well… I remember my mom working for two, and I remember having to take care of my sister more than what's usual for kids. But I got it, you know, I mean, it was either that or having us starve, so we didn’t see mom as much as we would have liked, but that’s what you get when you're as poor as we were. I know I never wanted something like that for my kid back when my ex-girlfriend got pregnant, I couldn’t stand rising my kid the same I was raised and I was poor enough already without having to feed another.”

“You know, I never saw myself as poor,” Kurt says, opening a new bottle and taking a sip. “I mean, when Dad was awake he made more than enough money with the garage, so our budget was never tight… but we knew how to make one anyway. I liked to dress in all these fashionable clothes; jackets that were more expensive than some of my friends’ computers even. But after the stroke, money was tight; tighter than I thought possible. I lost grip on what money meant besides paying for bills. I sold everything I could, I lost count of the times I had nothing to eat if I wanted to pay one bill or another… and yet I never felt poor.”

“How come?” Puckerman asks, and Kurt can read it now, he sees it in his eyes and he knows that what he finds there is surprise and a bit of respect.

“I had my dad, you know… I mean, he hasn’t woken up but he's there… I don’t need stuff as long as I have him. I don’t need things to like myself better or to make my life bearable, I just need him to wake up,” Kurt says with a shrug that hurts him inside more than he thinks is possible.

There’s an arm around his shoulders that he is not expecting, and he looks to the side to notice the way that Puckerman has gotten closer without him noticing. The man smells like gun powder and some fresh cologne, and Kurt relaxes without even knowing why.

“And now?” Puckerman asks; his voice is nothing but a whisper.

“Now I’m here, in the city I always considered a home, without my dad. At least… I know he is well there, as much as his situation will allow, but… he is treated well,” Kurt shrugs.

“But what about you? Do you feel poor here?” the man asks in such a way that Kurt knows immediately that he gets it, the difference between being poor and feeling poor.

“I have more money now; I haven’t been hungry in a while. The people at the garage feel like a family most of the time, and I have more friends than I did in Lima. My father might not be here, with me, but I’m not alone. I don’t feel poor,” Kurt says with a small smile.

“That’s good, buddy,” Puckerman says, snuggling Kurt even deeper against him.

A few hours later Kurt laid snuggled against a pillow, on the couch, with the smell of Puckerman’s blankets surrounding him.

 

***

 

With the memory of the night before clouding his brain, how fun it was to have friends and family near him again, Kurt walked back to his apartment. He felt calm, calmer than he had felt the whole week and the week before that, given that his father’s health didn’t seem to be getting any better. But he was at ease now; talking with Finn and Puckerman had been a good way to end the day, and his nerves weren’t as alert as they was before.

He had only been there for about an hour when his phone started to vibrate against the table.

It was from the hospital.

Kurt listened closely, but after a while the doctor had realized that he didn’t care about the general wellbeing of his father, what he wanted was to know _what_ had happened that made it necessary for them to call.

“Your father hasn’t been answering to the medication as well as we’d like so, after one severe seizure this morning, we’ve had to up his dose. We have yet to figure out what symptom is responsible for the seizures, so the anticonvulsant medication will need to be continued for a while longer,” the neurologist said on the phone, and Kurt was a bit surprised to realize how much he understood the conversation after having talked with the doctor for so long. And what he understood was that they didn’t have a clue how to stop he convulsions, or how to make anything better. He knew, just by his voice, that whatever would follow wouldn’t be good.

“Given the amount of time your father has been immobilized, what happened is not really surprising, but he seems to have developed osteoporosis, and as such, his bones have gotten really fragile in the last few years, and this has led to fracture in his hip after a really strong spasm, so he is being taken to surgery as we talk. I’m emailing you all the information you might need as a hip surgery is never a simple matter. The surgery in and of itself might be somewhat common, but it’s never good news."

Kurt knew that the doctor must have said some things afterwards, but he didn't remember much. A few minutes later, having opened the files on the computer he had bought just for this, Kurt cursed everything.

This operation was serious; it just made his father’s chances worse as the prognosis was poor to say the least.

It made him restless once again.

But there was nothing to do about it, not now… not until the doctor called to say that his dad was out of surgery.

Until then he’d have to control himself and let his heart beat loudly against his ears.

There was nothing to do about it; nothing but wait.

 

 

 

It had been weeks since anything related to the prankster had happened, and for a while Puck let himself believe that maybe those two occasions had been nothing more than a fluke and they didn’t have anything serious in their hands; it was all wishful thinking, really, so he wasn’t that surprised when, around 3 am, they got a call from central telling all units near the Guggenheim to get there immediately.

Robberies happened all the damn times, attempts even more, but Puck would never imagine that whoever was trying to rob the fucking museum would be their prankster. This would up the guy from prankster to thief, and Puck really didn’t like that.

When they got there, two other cars where already there, officers getting out of their patrols and talking fast with the security guards in search for information about the breach.

“Puckerman, Hudson, the guy came from the roof and took a piece from the museum. They think he's still inside,” Mav said, motioning for them to go inside with her and her partner.

Puck took a while getting there. Maybe too long, but there was something…

Something bothered him about this…

He looked up; on the roof, a dark figure was walking slowly, side-to-side, as if patrolling the place, never stopping. He stayed there, a little too long, wondering why a security ward was patrolling so calmly when the museum staff was about to tear their hair out trying to find the guy… and then the security guard stopped. He waited until Puck was inside the building to crouch… and jump.

The guy fucking jumped.

Puck got back to where he had been watching and saw nothing but a guy running straight into the wall that separated them from the Central Park, climbing it after jumping on a bench, and falling into the park.

“He's gone into the Park,” he called to the radio immediately, realizing that the security guard was obviously not who he appeared to be, and chasing behind him as fast as he could. “I repeat, the thief has left the building and is running into Central Park. Take your cars and get in there!”

His fall was anything but graceful, falling almost on his side in a bed of flowers and bushes that hurt way more than he’d expect from just some scrawny plants.

The Park at night was nothing like it was during the day, mainly because of the lack of people strolling around or being lazy in the grass, and the appearance of the homeless and crazy. A guy running as fast as his feet could take him, though, was still a sight weird enough that Puck saw him almost immediately.

The lack of natural light was a pain in the ass, but Puck ran as fast as he could because he was more than sure that it was dark enough to lose him if he wasn’t careful.

He didn’t bother calling out for the guy, there was no way he would stop, and he just took the strength to try and run faster. One of his ankles hurt from where he had fallen weirdly, but his muscles were warm enough that he could forget about it, even if he was sure he might need to take something for it later.

The thief was running on the grass, no doubt trying to keep himself from being seen, but Puck was running on the drive so he had an advantage from the different surface and tried to get some feet on him. If he tried some more, if he ran faster, he might even get to catch him.

“Where are you, Puckerman?” the voice from the radio startled him, and he didn’t lose time getting it to give his position. It would be useful to have someone on wheels behind this guy.

“East Drive, towards 86th Street. Hurry the fuck up!” he breathed into the radio. He didn’t bother pocketing it, he just ran faster, knowing that he was closer than before but getting kind of tired; the guy just kept running as if nothing had changed.

Then the guy got onto the drive, turned around and ran backwards. The nerve of him!

“You’ll get tired, officer, and that ankle looks like it'll hurt tomorrow,” he said with a deep voice that made Puck shiver a bit in anticipation for whatever might come.

“How about you stop running then?” he asked, still running as fast as he could, trying to use the different pace that guy needed to run backwards to his advantage.

“That’s not possible. I’m sorry. I might die if I do,” the guy said. Puck couldn’t see a thing about his face inside that god dammed balaclava he was wearing, but he could see that his face was white and his eyes clear. “But I’ll make it easier for you to give up, ok?” he said, and there were wrinkles around his eyes that made it clear that the guy was smiling.

The thief turned around, running forward again, and took off into the grass. Puck followed, knowing that there was a reason for it, and saw that the guy had gotten far ahead of him, obviously more used to running on grass than Puck was.

And then he saw it, near a gate, seemingly tied to it, a bike.

The thief took it in no time, like the chain wasn’t even locked, and took off on it, getting away before Puck could even think about stopping his chase.

“The subject is on a bike. I lost him,” Puck said before stopping.

His feet refused to give up. It was only a couple seconds later, when Finn asked where he was so he could be picked up, that Puck stopped.

He kicked a tree and almost forgot about the pain in his ankle in the middle of his rage at having lost the thief when he'd obviously been enjoying the chase.

 

***

 

He had almost forgotten about it.

But then Lark called them to a scene and he got to stand in the subway platform looking at the wall in front of them, trying to understand why, of all of the places in that city, the thief had chosen a subway station to leave what he had stolen.

And why the prankster had turned into a thief.

And what the hell did he mean by stealing things only to place them elsewhere.

Puck tried to understand what the thief had been thinking when, from all the possible things he could have stolen from a museum, he decided to steal a picture of a woman spinning around, in motion, with her hair and dress flowing around her. Why a black and white picture, why a girl, why a picture of a situation in which whatever was photographed would be forever captured in motion.

And why had the post-it only said:

_“My life at this point is like very old coffee-cup sediment… ”_

And why had the quote brought a pain to his chest that he could barely tolerate?

 

  


 

 

The surgery had been anything but successful.

The surgery had been successful at getting his dad’s hip fixed, but the collateral damage had been too great; too much, too fucking much.

Necrosis was what the doctor had said, avascular necrosis; his dad’s joints had gone so long without blood and oxygen from the fracture that the bones had just died. Surgery got more severe, it wasn’t just fixing him with screws; it meant taking off his joint and replacing it with metal. Taking off the whole head of his femur and replacing it with metal.

It was a pretty invasive surgery… and it shortened his dad’s life span. It depended on how he healed and how much bone they had taken… but it shortened his dad’s life span to a few years.

… Just a few years.

Kurt could barely believe it.

It was as if someone had finally pulled the trigger on his father's life and the bullet was just too slow to reach, but it would. It was inevitable.

His week had passed in a blur, but he barely took notice. He went on with his routine like a zombie.

He woke up, cried in the shower, and ate his breakfast on the way to the subway. He moved with the rest of the people, feeling the vibrations of the train in his bones, and tried not to cry when it stopped. He got to his job and fixed cars, he saw people laugh and people rage about the city, about the traffic, about everything under the sun. He had lunch with his coworkers, who he knew were starting to feel restless about his mood, but didn’t do anything to try and involve themselves with his problems. He went home, rode the subway back, and tried to keep the tears away for a few minutes longer until he was home, under the shower again, and he allowed himself to break down.

Rinse and repeat.

Rachel had called mid-week, after Carole called Finn, who'd told her about his father, and he agreed to go out with her, do something to take his mind off it.

They went to some museums, which was Rachel’s way of trying to make him think about other stuff, about someone who wasn’t his father, about the city and why he should stay here instead of running back to Lima and stay with his dad.

They went to the Guggenheim.

Art, she had said, was an expression of someone else’s emotion and maybe what Kurt needed was a rest from his own. Kurt was tempted to agree.

And then, while Rachel chatted away, trying to reach the top of the spiral that comprised the building so she could go back and watch everything in her own way, Kurt got caught by a picture.

Francesca Woodman was the name of the photographer, but he didn't really care about that, not as much as he cared for what was in front of him. The whole exhibition called to him in a way he didn’t think would, not when he was feeling stretched so thin. But the pictures… God, those photographs….

There was intensity in them, in the naked body, in the motion caught in most of them. He felt in his bones the decay that they showed, he felt the despair in some of them, and he felt the restlessness in his body beginning to grow once again just looking at them.

He saw vulnerability reflected in them, one that Kurt knew he didn’t want to face in himself.

And there was one that had him standing for hours just looking.

He felt the tears in his eyes, but he couldn’t bother with them, not when the picture wouldn't stop screaming at him.

There was a girl, or a woman, though it looked like a child. She was spinning, like a kid; playing, like a kid; turning around herself, forgetting where she was, forgetting the decadent place around her. She was spinning, her blonde hair and her dress flowing with her, floating around; moving.

 

  


 

He started walking backward and stopped when his back hit the parapet of the ramp.

It was only then that he noticed the tears running down his cheeks and the way that people were looking at him like he was crazy. He dried his eyes and cheeks as quickly as possible, and went back to find Rachel at the top of the building.

If she saw his red eyes, she didn’t say anything, and Kurt thanked her for it.

It was only when he was home, while reading a bit about the photographer, that he found the quote that made him realize what he had to do.

_“My life at this point is like very old coffee-cup sediment and I would rather die young leaving various accomplishments, i.e. some work, my friendship with you, some other artifacts intact, instead of pell-mell erasing all of these delicate things.”_

It took more planning than the other moves he had made before, but the thrill ran down his spine for longer too. Doing it was only half the fun, he realized now, and getting to know the building well enough for him to do what he needed… getting to know how the security guards worked, how to make himself invisible to people (going about like you worked somewhere always did the trick), and how to avoid security measures. He planned the way he would run away because he knew there was no way to get out of there without a plan, and just stealing someone’s car wouldn’t do the trick now.

And he felt alive, even if he wasn’t being chased yet; he felt alive in the knowledge that he was about to pull something off that not many other people would a regular day; he felt alive, that, even if this didn’t amount to anything in his life, for a while he could accomplish something so difficult and delicate that it would make him unique.

He felt alive because this, as much time as it took it, was a chase and was so much better than being a suicidal man. Because the chase, the feeling of having someone running behind him, the threat it meant to him, was just as strong as jumping from a building as Woodman had done, but he had way more chances of feeling the thrill and being alive afterward.

Having Puckerman being the officer that followed him, the one that gave the chase, the one that made the thrills run down his spine, though… that had been priceless.

And part of Kurt worried that he wouldn’t be able to look at the man in the eye again, not when he had felt such a rush of adrenaline just because of him.

Not when deep inside he knew that he was already wondering what else he could do to get his attention.

And how long the thrill would keep him from breaking down completely.

 

*****

 

For weeks he trained, and he ran, and lifted weights. He prepared himself to be perfect, to control everything that happened in his space, in _his_ situation. Kurt needed everything to be perfect, and that meant being perfect himself.

He trained, he ran, he lifted weights, he made himself learn how to balance himself on a tightrope, he made himself perfect at keeping himself alive; at feeling alive.

He managed to sleep just enough and he took good care of himself so no one noticed. He was careful not to have anyone suspect anything; made himself available to Finn whenever he wanted, went out with Rachel, got into long discussions with Officer Puckerman, thanked Gloria every time she cooked for him and smiled; God, it was so difficult to smile sometimes.

He kept up the appearance that everything was alright.

That he was just another person working in New York, even if sometimes after a bad call from Lima he clad himself in black and walked around the city in search of something to do, something to borrow, and a clever message to leave for someone to find and call the police.

He kept up the appearance that he was stronger than he was, when all he felt was brittle.

 

*****

 

The call from the hospital was as unexpected as it was unwelcome.

It would never be welcome, but now it popped his bubble in a way it hadn’t in a while; not since the first call they gave him, back when his dad had his second stroke and the nightmare began.

 

 

  


 

 

Why the fuck didn’t he have his fucking radio? Why the fuck did he leave his fucking cell phone at home? Why the fuck was he doing this to begin with!

Puck was currently running, in the middle of the night, towards the prankster, the thief, the Woodman thief as Lark had called him, even if it was his day off and he didn’t have anything on him to detain him with if he even got to catch him. He didn’t even have his phone to call someone at the department and alert them about it.

Fuck.

He was going to get a stitch if he didn’t stop soon, but the guy was currently climbing up a fire escape and Puck knew that if there was one place where he could corner him it would be a roof. You can’t do much when you are on a roof and there’s nowhere to run to, right?

God, he hoped so.

Maybe he could table him and somehow keep him detained until he managed to find a phone.

But, right now, he was running.

The guy in front of him was athletic, and stronger than he seemed to be at first sight if the way that he climbed onto things was any indication. If his brain wasn’t in full cop mode he might even say that the guy had a nice butt. And his deep mocking voice had been the same as before, calling him to the chase, into the trap.

Oh fuck. He stopped and tried to catch his breath for a while. His ankle had healed as well as it could during those five weeks, but… God, he needed to start training again. All those motherfucking donuts were making a disaster of his stamina, and apparently he was going to need it.

“Tired already, officer?” the prankster called, already a good three floors above him.

“Not really, just enjoying the view,” Puck answered with a glare. He took a deep breath and started climbing stairs again; not really enjoying the way that the guy above him was laughing but starting to feel, once again, that he wasn’t really a threat. And wasn’t that weird… the guy was a thief after all, who knew what could come next, and here he was starting to think that the chase was fun.

“You know, if you want a breather, you can always ask for one,” the prankster told him, and Puck decided to keep climbing instead of stopping to answer. “A man of your age doesn’t have as much stamina as one of mine would, it’s ok!”

The voice was mocking, but it wasn’t bothersome. It was banter, pure and unabashed banter, and if it had been any of his friends, Puck would have loved it, but the guy was still climbing.

Four floors later Puck was on the roof, looking everywhere for the guy and wondering where he might be. He had the feeling that he might have been caught in a trap, but there was nothing yet that made it obvious, and it was one against one, and the guy didn’t seem dangerous or armed; he beat himself over and over again in his mind, thinking of how foolish and naïve he had been to follow.

And then he heard the snap near his hand.

He looked down to his wrist and saw the handcuff linking him to a rail and blinked, not realizing yet what had happened.

There were clear eyes smiling at him just a foot from him, and before he had the chance to make a grab for him, the guy had taken a jump backwards, separating them from each other by a couple more feet. More than enough for Puck to inspect him and try to get as much of him as he could to commit to memory, but not enough to grab him.

“What were you doing out so late, officer? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to go out alone at night?” the prankster asked, sitting on the building parapet, too far from Puck for him to be comfortable.

“I was getting some cigarettes if you must know,” Puck answered, glaring at him.

“Well, that explains your lack of stamina, I guess,” the man said with a small giggle. “But isn’t it kinda late for a cigarette run? Surely you could have done it tomorrow morning?”

“That isn’t any of your business,” Puck answered while trying, somehow, to slip his hand from the handcuff; the bite of the metal against his skin kept him from trying further.

“Ooh, the officer’s got a temper,” the prankster commented, leaning in and resting his chin on his knuckles; elbows resting on his crossed knees. “So, what were you doing up so late? Surely you have a lot of bad people to catch tomorrow and you’ll need all your energy; besides, you don’t look like a smoker.”

“They weren’t for me, if you gotta know,” Puck grumbled. He considered sitting down, as the prankster was obviously in a talkative mood; maybe if he kept him there he could learn something about him that would give up his identity.

“Ooh, were you buying something for someone else then? Maybe a girlfriend or a wife?”

“None of your business, kid,” Puck said, glaring.

“Can I ask you a question?” the guy said, sitting up and getting close enough to talk without speaking up, but not enough to be grabbed.

“I don’t have a say in what you do or not, do I?” Puck grumbled.

“Why did you choose to be a cop? Putting your own health at risk to catch bad guys doesn’t seem like a good way to go if you're that desperate to die,” the prankster asked, sitting on the floor by his feet. Puck gave up and sat down too, with his arm twisted in a weird way but still more comfortable than he was before.

“It's not about the bad guys, it’s about protecting the innocent ones,” Puck explained, not understanding why he was talking with this guy when he should be trying to get free to arrest him. “It’s about trying to keep kids from suffering or missing people when the bad guys win.”

“So it’s something from your past then. Your daddy was a good man killed by a bad guy? And you want some sort of revenge?” he asked, skepticism clear in his voice.

“My old man was an asshole, and no, it’s not about revenge. It’s just me trying me right some wrongs, make it easier for the kids. I don’t want any kid to have to miss their moms or dads like I had to,” he said, trying to make his words drown in conviction as they left his lips.

“What about your mom? Don’t you think she worries about what's going to happen if you're killed?” he asked.

“My entire family hates it.”

“I can’t blame them,” he said. “What are you going to do when you have kids?”

“What do you mean?” Puck asked, not wanting to tell this guy, whoever it was, that he already had one. The woman who adopted her had been crazy enough to agree to let him be a part of his daughter’s life; it wasn’t something that many people knew and he certainly wasn’t going to reveal that part of himself to a thief.

“Well, I suppose that having a family of your own should put things in perspective. What was ok before might change and be different when it’s your own kids that might end up alone and missing their daddy after you’ve been killed in the streets,” he said, looking at him with such a clear gaze that Puck realized that the guy was genuinely curious about it.

And this guy… this guy wasn’t that far from the truth.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t asked himself before. He did every time he had to attend to some call about a fight or a shooting. He thought about his mother every time he put on his bulletproof vest, how much his sister would hit him if he got shot.

He had never really taken the time to wonder what might happen to Beth if she never saw him again. Probably nothing, she barely saw him to be honest. He never had the time, not that much, and as much as he’d like to be there with her at least once a week… his job was demanding and dangerous.

Not for the first time he lamented the small amount of time he could actually dedicate to his daughter.

“You're thinking about it, aren’t you…?” he asked, looking at Puck warily.

“What about you, why do you steal all these things?” Puck asked, not wanting to answer the prankster's question.

“I don’t steal!” the man exclaimed, sincerely aggravated, or so it seemed.

“You take things from their places, kid; that’s stealing.”

“I… borrow, if you will,” he explained, as if it made sense; the small glare in his clear eyes made Puck chuckle. “I always put the stuff in a public place, somewhere where it can be seen and not stolen. The painting? In a subway station. The necklace last week? On a very public statue in the middle of the city. And I put notes! Surely the policemen know by now that if there are post it notes, it’s from me.”

“Oh, believe me, we know.” Puck commented.

“And you must make sure that the things go back to their owners, right? Eventually, they have to go back to them,” the thief glared at him, daring him to say otherwise. As though he was really worried about the things finding their way home. Uh? Look at that, maybe he was…

“Then, if you're not stealing them, why do you do it? Why do you take the time to ‘borrow’ them and make a fool out of us?” Puck asked, lifting an eyebrow.

The moon was big enough in the sky to light the roof and all the chimneys, but it wasn’t enough to show the face of the man in front of him when he didn’t want to be seen.

“Making a fool of you was never part of it,” the man whispered, so low that Puck could barely hear it.

“Then what was it?”

“Do you go around the city and enjoy it, officer? Do you look at some kids playing and enjoy their laughter? Or maybe you go and take a walk around Central Park and enjoy the way nature changes with time, how everything bursts with life?” the guy asked as he got up.

“I suppose.”

“I don’t. It’s been years since I saw things bursting with energy around me and felt it infecting me. I see kids around me, laughing, and all I see is a bunch of kids that should be quieter. I take a walk around Central Park and all I can think of is that grass is going to stain my pants if I sit, or how many dog owners don’t take care of where their dogs poop. Then I go back to my dull apartment and take no joy in anything I do,” he said, in such a voice that Puck knew it was the truth. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that the man was being completely honest right now, and he respected that.

“So you steal?” Puck couldn’t help but ask.

“No, I run. I borrow things to make you follow me, to make you give chase; to make me run,” the guy answered. “Knowing that being alive, or being outside of a jail depends on me running away from you… That makes me feel alive, makes me feel free.”

“But you are, though; alive and free,” Puck commented with a smirk.

“It doesn’t feel that way. I feel numb, like I’m waiting to wake up… or to rise from water that’s trying to drown me. I feel restless, tense, nervous, and yet I can’t do anything but run, 'cause everything else doesn’t even interest me,” the thief smiled, he could see it in his eyes, but at the same time he knew it was such a sad smile that he couldn’t help but pity him.

Lark had shown him the photographer's full quote that this guy had stolen; it made so much sense now… and it hurt, knowing that there was someone hurting that much just in front of him.

“Is this what you expected from life?” Puck asked as he watched at the way the guy stopped pacing in front of him.

“No. I had dreams, I had a future planed ahead of me where nothing could ever go wrong again, but it seems that nothing is going as I planned,” the thief shrugged.

“Is there any way to go back to that plan?” Puck asked, praying that there was. He could see the way he was hurting, and he didn’t seem like a bad guy. Really, he was almost childish and innocent, in the way he went about things. He hadn’t put anyone in harm's way, and he returned everything that he took, some way or another. Puck felt like he was talking with a very scared child, and he wanted to do something for him, even if it only helped him realize that there must be other ways to get joy out of life again.

“I don’t see any…” the guy started, before a ringtone cut through.

It was a default ringtone, it had no personality at all, and yet Puck could see the way the eyes on the prankster hardened. He took the phone from a zipped up pocket of his pants and walked to sit back on the parapet again.

Puck couldn’t listen to what was being said, there was too much space between them and the guy was talking too low, but he could see the way that the guy’s hands had started trembling and how, from time to time, he looked down to the streets as if wondering.

The light of the moon was strong enough to let him see the unshed tears in his eyes.

It seemed like hours before the guy cut off the call.

And it seemed to take hours for him to get out of the trance in which he seemed to have fallen.

Puck was almost surprised when he sat up, walked to Puck and left a key in the floor, close enough to get it, far enough to have to work for it. Next to it he left a round metal disk with the New York City seal engraved on it. He took a post it from another of his pockets and left it, blank, over the disk.

“Hey, kid…. Are you ok?” Puck asked when the thief turned around to walk to the staircase.

“I guess I’m free now. I don’t have anyone else to answer to,” he said. His rough, low voice broke on the last words.

Puck’s heart broke with him.

 

  


 

 

The funeral was a sad affair. Apparently, the news had gotten around fast and people Kurt didn’t even know had attended the funeral, being really sad and so, so sorry about it, when they hadn't even been there when his dad had needed them the most.

Burt Hummel was buried next to his wife. Burt and Elizabeth Hummel rested next to each other from that moment on.

After the funeral, Kurt spent the day in the garage, looking at the papers and touching the cars that were waiting to be fixed.

He was reminded of Gloria, who had hugged him so tightly when he asked for a few days off to go back home, to bury his dad and make sure that everything got handled.

He was reminded of his dad, and the long hours he had spent with him in this place, learning everything he had to know about life.

He was reminded of the loss, of what had happened, that there was nothing more to do, nothing to hope for, and nothing left to tie him there.

He felt untethered, now more than ever.

As the sun set over the roofs in Lima, Kurt Hummel sat down in the garage’s floor, dressed in his father’s overalls, and cried.

 

  


 

 

It had been months since he last saw the prankster, though Puck had to admit that the guy came into his thoughts at least once a week before he decided to take matters into his own hands.

It had been a blow to his gut to realize that there were things that could break someone that wasn't bad guys, or law, or right and wrong. It had been so ingrained in his brain that bad people had to be taken care of so that good people didn’t have to suffer, that seeing the way a guy, though lost and broken, was good guy, was suffering because of life, because of numbness...

It had been a blow.

He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he had spent many hours a day for the next week thinking: “what makes me feel alive?”

He had focused on music in the end, just like his dad had once. He understood him a little then, the joy of being able to play something and sing, the way he could feel shivers when something really emotional was played on the radio, or the way his sister had begun to cry after he tried singing to her.

Music was really magical sometimes.

Sometimes, he wished he could meet the guy, the prankster, the Woodman thief; ask him if he was better now, if he could look at the trees and enjoy life, if he still wanted the kids to be quiet, or if he still felt numb.

But he didn’t, he hadn’t. The guy had vanished from the city for all he knew.

Puck was kind of sad about it, worried even.

Most of the time he had things to keep his mind busy, things to keep him entertained. He had, after all, taken a big leap of faith retiring before he really knew what he wanted to do later… and it was taking a lot of work to get his stability back, but he didn’t dwell on the instability.

But, things were good almost everywhere else.

Beth was going to stay at his place tonight and he was already bursting with energy about it, wondering what they could play, what they could do, what movies they could watch and what was he going to cook for her dinner.

He was thinking pizza, or maybe some homemade pasta; maybe just cake and cookies. God knew that he was always in the mood to have nothing but sweets every time he was with her; even if it was only so he could have her level of energy.

He went to the dairy section of the supermarket, wondering if Beth liked yogurt, or if maybe he should just get some milk for the cookies.

Just a few feet from him, though, there was a lean and athletic figure that he had been missing for a while.

“Kurt! Man, it’s good to see you!” he exclaimed, throwing an arm around him.

“Oh my God!” Kurt exclaimed, holding the place where his heart was, his voice high pitched with surprise.

“Man, when did you come back? How have you been?” Puck asked, really glad to see him after all those months. Sure, they never saw each other that much, but the last he had heard from him was Finn telling him about his father. Kurt had been all but MIA since then. “I heard about your dad.”

“Well… it’s been… difficult,” Kurt answered with a sad smile. “But I’m better. Moving on, starting to live my own life again.”

“I’m glad you are, dude,” Puck said, holding him tightly against him. “So, are you back in the City, like, for good?”

“Yeah… for good this time,” he answered, and there was something so mischievous in his eyes that Puck did a double take. “I haven’t heard much about you from Finn, did you two had a fight or something?”

“I retired from the force a couple months ago,” Puck answered with a shrug.

“Oh my, why?” Kurt asked, surprised.

“Let’s just say that a friend beat some sense into me,” he said with a small smile, and Kurt's surprised eyes regarded him curiously. “Well, we weren’t exactly friends, but he had a good argument I hadn’t considered. About what would happen with Beth if something happened to me.”

There was some kind of recognition in Kurt’s eyes, and for a moment Puck thought that maybe he had said too much; the guy had lost his father just 7 months ago, it might have been tactless.

“I’m glad you retired then. Beth should be able to have her daddy with her when she grows up,” Kurt said with a smile, before slipping from his arms to take some cartons of milk from the shelf in front of them. Puck’s brain told him that it was the same brand that the prankster had stolen the first time, but he shut the thought down and tried to think about Kurt, who was there, Kurt who he actually knew, Kurt who was fun and pretty and a good friend, Kurt who was a good guy who had just lost his dad and was finding his place in life again.

“I’m studying music and I’m volunteering at some places now, I work with kids. And I have a lot of time to spend with her now. I love it,” he said with a smile, as he tried to erase the thoughts of the prankster from his mind.

“Really? I’m so glad for you… well, I guess I can’t call you Officer Puckerman anymore,” Kurt teased with a smile.

“Just call me Puck, it's what you should have been calling me ages ago. I never knew why you stuck with calling me officer,” Puck laughed.

“Well, it makes for great role plays in bed,” Kurt laughed and teased with such a low voice that Puck felt his blood get warmer at the thought of how similar it was to the prankster.

“Whenever you want, babe; it would be a great story to tell Finn… and a lot of fun to have between us,” Puck answered, trying to keep the mood light, even if his gut coiled with a sudden want he had felt a few times before when he was with Kurt, but never as strong.

“Today?”

“I’ll have to take a rain check for today. I’m having dinner with Beth, and she's going to stay the night,” Puck answered with a smile.

“Well, you can’t have her waiting. How about I call you during the week,” Kurt said, his clear eyes completely serious. Puck nodded, with a tongue like sandpaper inside his mouth.

“That would be awesome,” Puck said after he had licked his lips. “We could get some drinks and then go back to my place.”

“Well, you have the whole night planned already, don’t you?”

“As if we haven't done the same before,” Puck teased, even though he knew that none of those times had ended with either of them doing anything naughty. Back then, Kurt had a completely different air about him, some kind of ‘Don’t even try it’ that kept him from making a move. Maybe the guy had been just too stressed about his dad and really had no libido to speak of; that could explain it.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your shopping then. I have a lot of homework waiting for me,” Kurt said with a smile, hugging him tightly for a bit in goodbye.

“You‘re studying?” Puck asked, surprised.

“I’m trying to find the will to follow my dreams again. I had them postponed for so long that I can barely remember what they were, but being a performer has always been there… Now I just have to work towards it. I’m free now to do so, I answer to no one but myself,” Kurt said, with a sad smile.

There was something in the back of Puck’s mind that had been lurking during the entire conversation, and which had been pushed to the forefront with that last sentence.

Swallowing, Puck decided he _had_ to know for sure.

“That’s nice. Hey, for an almost seven year old girl, yogurt, or milk and cookies,” he asked, pointing to the yogurt on the shelves.

“Milk,” Kurt said, choosing the same brand that he had in his cart and placing it in Puck’s hands. “Warm it up, will you? It’s delicious with some cinnamon and nutmeg.”

It was like the drop that spilled the glass. Just a sentence and everything was falling into place around him and before he even knew what he was doing, he took a step and caught Kurt by his wrist.

“It was you, wasn’t it? All this time it was you,” he said. It wasn’t really a question, it wasn’t an accusation either. He just needed to say it out loud and see the truth reflected in Kurt’s eyes; in the thief’s eyes.

“Took you long enough,” Kurt answered with a teasing smile.

“Are you still…?” he asked.

“No. There’s no need to anymore.”

They didn’t speak for a while, just looked at each other for a few long seconds. Puck had so many things he wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to do. And yet he found himself unable to do any of them.

When the silence became too much, Kurt freed his wrist from Puck’s grasp with a small, shy smile. Puck went ahead and hugged him tightly, enjoying the heat of Kurt’s body against his.

“I’m so glad you're ok,” he whispered against Kurt’s neck.

“I’m glad you seem to be ok with me,” Kurt laughed, patting his back and hugging him back just as tightly.

“So… you realize that the role play scenario you mentioned has a complete new meaning for me now, right?” Puck teased. Kurt laughed against his shoulder in a way that Puck had never heard before; so light and free that it made shivers runs down his back.

They separated after a while, both with smiles and glinting eyes. As if they had finally found each other again, now, after realizing who the prankster was. Maybe they had just found each other, as that big secret that hung over them was gone and there were no lies between them. Everything felt cleaner between them.

“Ok, you have a lot of homework and all; I won’t keep you from it,” Puck said after a while, barely believing the spin his life had taken in just a few minutes.

“Thanks. I hope you have a great time with Beth. Remember, I’ll be calling you during the week so we can get those drinks,” Kurt said, with a smile. Neither moved. After a while Kurt laughed again and bit his lip while looking at him. “Bye, Puck.”

“Bye, you thief,” Puck said, with a laugh.

“Not a thief, a borrower!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The art for this fic was made by the awesome [Bumerbmw](http://bumerbmw.livejournal.com/) and the writing was betaed by the amazing [Madboosties](http://madboosties.tumblr.com/). May they live and reign for ever and ever.
> 
> Please take the time to comment on the Livejournal entry about Bumerbmw's art.
> 
> Also, the copyrights to the photography of the girl belong to Francesca Woodman, the photographer Kurt mentioned.


End file.
